Adobe Enables 3D Games With Flash Player 11, AIR 3

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Adobe
Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe®
Flash® Player 11 and Adobe
AIR® 3 software to enable the next generation of immersive
application experiences across devices and platforms including Android,
Apple
iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry®
Tablet OS, Mac
OS, Windows®,
connected TVs and other platforms. As the game console for the Web,
Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 allow game publishers to instantly deliver
console-quality 2D and 3D games over the Internet to nearly all PCs and
many other devices. Media companies can take advantage of new features
to seamlessly deliver protected feature-length, cinema-quality HD video
through the Web, in mobile apps, and even with surround sound for
connected TVs. Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 provide a cross-device
entertainment platform, enabling the best in online gaming and premium
video while helping content publishers to reach the broadest possible
audience with highly-leveraged development investments.

Dozens of new features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 allow developers to
deliver a new class of gaming and premium video experiences, as well as
sophisticated, data-driven applications with back-end systems
integration across devices, including the iPhone
and iPad
via AIR. AIR native extensions add support for unique device features
and native code libraries, empowering developers to freely choose the
right mix of Flash, HTML5 and native code to provide powerful user
experiences across PCs and devices. Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will be
publicly available in early October. Flash
Builder® and Flex,
Adobe’s open source framework for building mobile, Web and desktop apps,
will offer support for the new features in an upcoming release before
the end of the year.

“With this milestone release Adobe pushes the envelope of what is
possible on the Web with a typical PC and opens up a new world of
immersive, high-performance gaming experiences,” said Danny Winokur,
vice president and general manager of Platform, Adobe. “Flash offers the
best way for content owners to deliver their most demanding experiences,
including games, premium video and sophisticated data-driven apps, to
all of their users, while HTML 5 tools such as Adobe
Edge and Dreamweaver®
are ideal for building interactive Web pages, rich ads, branded
microsites and general-purpose mobile applications.”

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 offer dozens of new features including:

Accelerated 2D/3D Graphics: Full hardware-accelerated rendering
for 2D and 3D graphics enable 1,000 times faster rendering performance
over Flash Player 10 and AIR 2. Developers are able to animate
millions of objects with smooth 60 frames per second rendering and
deliver console-quality games on Mac OS, Windows and connected
televisions. A pre-release brings these same accelerated 2D and 3D
capabilities to mobile platforms including Android, Apple iOS and
BlackBerry Tablet OS. A production release for mobile platforms is
expected in the near future. For examples of 3D games for Flash
Player, visit www.adobe.com/go/gaming.

AIR Native Extensions: With support for thousands of
highly-optimized, open-source libraries, developers are able to tap
into unique software and hardware capabilities including access to
device data, vibration control, magnetometers, light sensors, dual
screens, near field communications (NFC) and more. Native extensions
also allow developers to more deeply integrate AIR applications with
other business software.

Captive Runtime: Developers can automatically package AIR 3
with their applications to simplify the installation process on
Android, Windows and Mac OS in addition to Apple iOS. Users no longer
have to download and update AIR separately on any of these platforms,
or BlackBerry Tablet OS, which includes AIR built in. In addition,
with the captive runtime option developers can manage version updates
to their application independent of general AIR updates by Adobe.

Content Protection: Premium video content can now be protected
using Adobe
Flash Access® 3 across all supported platforms, including new
support for mobile platforms.

HD Video Quality Across Platforms: Full frame rate HD video can
now be displayed within AIR applications on Apple iOS devices using
H.264 hardware decoding. Rich applications on televisions are also
able to deliver HD video with 7.1 channel surround sound.

Rental and Subscriptions Support: With support for Adobe
Flash Access and Adobe
Pass, content publishers can take advantage of rental and
subscription options for more flexible business models and offer TV
Everywhere content to more than 80 percent of U.S. pay TV subscribers.

Compatibility: 64-bit support on Linux, Mac OS and Windows
ensures a seamless experience with the latest 64-bit browsers.

“Zynga’s
mission is to connect the world through games by bringing play to
everyone, everywhere,” said Cadir Lee, chief technology officer, Zynga.
“In order to do that, we’re committed to building mainstream
entertainment across all devices, platforms and applications, whether
it’s through Flash or HTML5. We look forward to the release of Adobe
Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 as next-generation applications to help
bring Zynga games to our players worldwide.”

“We strive to bring games to our customers wherever and whenever they
want to play,” said Mark Vange, vice president and chief technology
officer, EA
Interactive. “The ubiquity of Flash helps EA to bring our
chart-topping games to a broader variety of platforms and connect with
consumers across a wide range of devices.”

“In ‘Petz
World,’ players can adopt, train animals and take them on exciting
adventures around the world,” said Shara Hashemi, senior international
brand manager, Ubisoft.
“It’s important the animals in ‘Petz World’ act as if they are alive and
behave like their real world counterparts. Flash Player 11 with fully
hardware accelerated 3D graphics allows us to deliver the same
high-quality animations and 3D models on the Web that our players have
loved for years on consoles.”

"The opportunities for casual gaming on desktops, tablets and other
mobile devices are endless and without Flash we wouldn't have been able
to create such beautiful, rich and interactive animations," said Jakub
Dvorsky, game designer and director, Amanita
Design. "It's absolutely crucial for us to reach the widest possible
audience without having to start the development work from scratch for
each platform. With Flash, we were able to revamp Machinarium
in a matter of weeks and bring it from the Web to the iPad as an app in
less than two months with other platforms like Android and BlackBerry
following soon."

“Adobe Flash Player with 3D lets us render a tremendous number of
buffered triangles quickly with excellent performance and stability,”
said Michael Plank, co-founder, Pro
3 Games. “It was clear from the beginning that Adobe Flash was the
perfect solution to deliver browser-based, console-quality games with
powerful visuals and interactivity. The develop once, deploy anywhere
capabilities enable us to engage gamers everywhere across Web browsers
and sets us up nicely to move into the mobile space.”

"Adobe Flash makes it easy to extend the reach of our brand and our
games because of the deep market penetration of Flash Player and that
worldwide ubiquity is critical for us," said Anton Volkov, chief
technology officer, AlternativaPlatform.
"Adobe Flash Player 11 with Stage 3D provides unique functionality,
including native 64-bit support and asynchronous bitmap decoding, to
allow us to leverage both 2D and 3D components for the best gaming
experience possible."

Flash Player is supported on more than 98 percent of Internet connected
PCs today and by the end of 2011, Adobe expects more than 200 million
smartphones and tablets including Apple iOS devices to support Flash
based applications via Adobe AIR. By the end of 2015, the number of
devices that will support Adobe AIR is expected to increase to 1 billion.

Adobe AIR, a superset of Flash Player, enables developers to leverage
existing code to create and deliver standalone applications across
devices and platforms. Thousands of Flash based applications have
already been created and made available on Android
Market, iTunes
App Store, Samsung
SmartTV Store and BlackBerry
AppWorld™ today.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more
information, visit www.adobe.com.